Exploring an Adventure Mindset
What have been your very best days out in the world far from home?
If you’re like me, your best days are the ones that resulted in stories that you tell over and over again. However, the days you tell stories about aren’t always the ones that went perfectly to plan, are they? Usually, the stories you tell are the result of something, or many things, going far differently than you thought they would.
These are the days you found your way through anyway.
These are the days that you embraced an adventure mindset. It’s simply a thought pattern that allows you to see the current circumstances as an adventure, a part of a journey, and as a story in the making.
It’s pretty easy to embrace this mindset on vacation because you’re literally on an adventure. You’ve planned for it and now it’s time to enjoy it. When something goes wrong, you may even say, “I’m not going to let this ruin our trip.” You are choosing how to respond rather than feeling like a victim of the situation.
At the moment went things start to go awry, you can dig your heels in and get angry or you can look for solutions. In everyday life, people frequently choose the former but on vacation, people seem more likely to choose the latter. That’s interesting, why the difference?
While you’re on vacation, you’re already out of your comfort zone. You’re there to have fun and learn something new. You don’t live there and you may not speak the language, so you already know you need to be flexible.
Though my family has a very busy schedule at home, we loosen the reins substantially when we travel. This gives us lots of freedom to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Amid the fun, we sometimes end up on the wrong subway train, lost deep in the countryside without a working GPS, or held at the border under suspicion that we stole our own car. In fact, just about every day something odd happens – but we keep traveling. It all becomes part of the adventure.
At home or on vacation, the days you choose to work with what life sends your way can become some of the most interesting parts of your story. So, how can you bring this vacation mindset into your daily life? Try one of these when facing a challenge or unexpected situation:
Sit down with a journal and write out possible solutions until there is nothing else to say.
Talk to a friend or your partner to brainstorm some options.
Text someone who really understands you.
Take a breath and ask yourself how you want to respond. If the first answer is not constructive, try again.
Trust that you can navigate your way through this adventure too.
p.s. As with all examples on this site, every single thing above has happened to me and I lived to tell the tale, you will too. Getting held at the border is a funny story…now.
